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Topic: After Swarm? Second swarm I have found and put in a cardboard box! (Read 1035 times)

Hello all, Advice Please, I found a swarm a week ago and after two days in a cardboard box a friend gave me a brood box to put them in. They seem quite happy a week later and apear to be real busy. Today I found another smaller swarm, maybe the size of a small football. i was told by a man at Dadent bee supply that the swarm was an after swarm and probably not big enough to survive winter, his suggestion was to add it to the first hive by putting three sheets of newspaper on the first brood box and then add another brood box and dump these bees into it. He said the bees would eat through the paper, workers would become friends, queens would fight and the younger queen would win and take over the hive? I have another brood box coming maybe as soon as tomorrow. Any suggestions Ideas, or opinions on if this is a good thing to do or not? This is my first bee hive.

Was thinking they were itty bitty swarms, perhaps the size of a softball, missed the football size reference, I now concur with the above aforementioned. A football sized swarm is a decent sized swarm.

You can also switch the locations of the hives to help 'boost' the smaller swarm when most of the forager bees are out in the field. When the forager bees come back to the former location of the larger hive, they are loaded down with pollen and nectar, so the guard bees will let them in.

You gain the larger amount of forager bees, plus the pollen and nectar they are bringing in to the smaller swarm....the forager bees from the smaller hive will be taking their pollen and nectar into the larger and stronger hive. It helps to do this to equal out a sizes of each hive.